In the prologue to his short story collection, Mo Yan writes how his childhood governed by famine shaped the stories he wrote (emphasis mine):

“As kids, we had little meat on our bones; we were sticklike figures with big rounded bellies, the skin stretched so taut it was nearly transparent – you could just about see our intestines twist and coil on the other side. Our necks were so long and thin it was a miracle they could support our heavy heads. And what ran through those heads was simplicity itself: all we ever thought about was food and how to get it. We were like a pack of starving dogs, haunting the streets and lanes sniffing the air for something to put inside our bellies…

“Up to this point, three of my novels have been published in America: Red Sorghum, The Garlic Ballads, and The Republic of Wine. In The Garlic Ballads I reveal a critical view of politics and my sympathy for China’s peasants. The Republic of Wine expresses my sorrow over the decline of humanity and my loathing of a corrupt bureaucracy. On the surface, each of these novels appears to be radically different from the others, but but at their core they are very much alike; they all express a yearning for the good life by a lonely child afraid of going hungry.”

As for me, I have published three short stories to date. The Golden Apple is about a midnight duel that is taken over by one person’s obsession. The Magic Cow is about a merchant who sells a cow that promises magic, only for the town to be wholly ruined by it. Finally, Nurture is about a young girl who mistakenly arrives at a wrong boarding house and story of the couple that take her in.

These three stories, amongst my other drafts, all have one thread in common: they are stories of when our emotions get the better of us and result in uncharacteristic decisions.

Upon reflection, this interest arose due to a series of events that occurred in my early teen years. Our neighbour at the time was a strange, unpredictable person who would frequently play loud music and make racist remarks towards my family. At night, when we attended to our garden, he would stand at the fence separating us and stare. If we looked at him, he would make these strange facial expressions to scare us. I later found out he had schizophrenia – my first experience with mental illness.

Next was a series of bad decisions I made after my father passed away. The grief I faced nearly resulted in me being suspended from school. My teacher remarked in front of the class, “This is so uncharacteristic of him.” This was utterly humiliating – my first personal experience of emotions taking over someone.

Finally, related to the passing, was my subsequent experience with video game addiction. It became my coping strategy and was an effective one, but led me down a deep hole that has proven difficult to climb out of. Its hold still echoes in me sometimes. This was my first personal experience of addiction.

These three events are reflected in my first three stories with its themes of addiction, mental illness, and grief. I hadn’t realised it at the time, but the stories that I felt compelled to write were direct reflections of experiences that had shaped me growing up. And I think these experiences also shaped my transition into medicine, as I felt compelled to study diseases and help people suffering, and my more recent interest in Psychiatry.

The threads from our childhood tug at us, conscious or not.